Words and deeds
By Jennifer Thompson
The UN International Conference on Population and Development, which wound up on September 13, has been hailed as a victory with the acceptance of an "action plan" described as a radical document on sex and reproduction. The agreement purportedly enshrines sexual reproductive rights, empowers women and draws a population strategy for 20 years.
Compromises on the content of the document, which is not binding, removed references to sexual health and rights, reproductive rights, the right to family reunion through migration, abortion in the context of family planning and other clauses which challenged the dominance of the stereotypical family in all aspects of women's lives.
But even after these changes, "the gist of the text is still pretty much what it was when we came out of New York ... Reproductive rights and reproductive health are very much with us", claimed Nicolaas Biegman, the Dutch vice-chairperson of the main drafting committee.
While some Western leaders have been made out to be heroes, great liberal fighters for the empowerment of women as the solution to increasing population, a closer look highlights one of the real problems with the "Program for Action": the gap between rhetoric and reality.
One of the major concerns and criticisms by women's organisations has been the concentration on population control rather than economic and social development that improves the status of women. Indeed, in discussing fertility control, prominent environmentalist, Jonathon Porritt has argued against the notion that development is what is needed. "In country after country, average fertility rates have been falling dramatically over the past 20 years — with or without the necessary increases in per capita income."
Porritt cites a 20% reduction in fertility rates between 1970 and 1991 in Bangladesh as evidence of the success of the fertility control programs implemented in that country.
What he does not mention is the combination of financial incentives and coercion to take the control of their fertility from women through the use of sterilisation and contraceptives that must be installed and removed by medical practitioners, often without informed consent. Maybe he doesn't understand the repressive reality of the these programs, or maybe he just doesn't want to know.
Others who have come out of the debate looking like squeaky clean progressives have been Western governments countries such as the US and Australia. Their real record on the issue of women's reproductive rights is less impressive.
Clinton's 1992 election was due in part to his proclaimed support for abortion rights. His actions since that time have failed to meet feminist expectations, with the Freedom of Choice Act still not introduced to Congress and access to abortions still difficult or impossible for women in many US states. In addition, Clinton has recently gone on a reactionary campaign of reinforcing "family values" and cutting welfare programs, measures aimed at single mothers, particularly black single mothers dependent on the welfare system.
The Australian government has also mouthed the rhetoric of empowerment of women and reproductive rights but failed to meet this vision in reality. Not only has the use of long-term contraceptives and sterilisation been forced on Aboriginal women and newly arrived migrants for many years now, but abortion is still technically illegal in most states and access highly problematic for women outside major population centres.
The ALP government has supported the Indonesian occupation of East Timor since 1975, and in addition to outright slaughter, the Indonesian program of genocide has included the use of force in sterilisation and fertility control programs.
This gap between reality and rhetoric explains why women aren't dancing in the streets over the Cairo conference.